They walked past a fountain. The deacon's steelshod staff clicked in the night.
“I see a great future for you in the Church,” said Vorbis, eventually. “The time of the eighth Prophet is coming. A time of expansion, and great opportunity for those true in the service of Om.”
Brutha looked into the pit.
If Vorbis was right, and there was a kind of light that made darkness visible, then down there was its opposite, the darkness where no light could ever reach: darkness that blackened light. He thought of blind Didactylos and his empty lantern.
He heard himself say, “And with people like the Ephebians, there is no truce. No treaty can be held binding, if it is between people like the Ephebians and those who follow a deeper truth?”
Vorbis nodded. “When the Great God is with us,” he said, “who can stand against us? You impress me, Brutha.”
There was more laughter in the darkness, and the twang of stringed instruments.
“A feast,” sneered Vorbis. “The Tyrant invited us to a feast! I sent some of the party, of course. Even their generals are in there! They think themselves safe behind their labyrinth, as a tortoise thinks himself safe in his shell, not realizing it is a prison. Onward.”
The inner wall of the labyrinth loomed out of the darkness. Brutha leaned against it. From far above came the chink of metal on metal as a sentry went on his rounds.
The gateway to the labyrinth was wide open. The Ephebians had never seen the point of stopping people entering. Up a short side-tunnel the guide for the first sixth of the way slumbered on a bench, a candle gut?tering beside him. Above his alcove hung the bronze bell that would-be traversers of the maze used to sum?mon him. Brutha slipped past.
“Brutha?”
“Yes, lord?”
“Lead the way through the labyrinth. I know you can.”
"Lord-
“This is an order, Brutha,” said Vorbis, pleasantly.
There is no hope for it, Brutha thought. It is an order.
“Then tread where I tread, lord,” he whispered. “Not more than one step behind me.”
“Yes, Brutha.”
“If I step around a place on the floor for no reason, you step around it too.”
“Yes, Brutha.”
Brutha thought: perhaps I could do it wrong. No. I took vows and things. You can't just disobey. The whole world ends if you start thinking like that . . .
He let his sleeping mind take control. The way through the labyrinth unrolled in his head like a glow?ing wire .
. . . diagonally forward and right three and-a-half paces, and left sixty-three paces, pause two seconds?where a steely swish in the darkness suggested that one of the guardians had devised something that won him a prize-and up three steps . . .
I could run forward, he thought. I could hide, and he'd walk into one of the pits or a deadfall or some?thing, and then I could sneak back to my room and who would ever know?
I would .
. . . forward nine paces, and right one pace, and forward nineteen paces, and left two paces . . .
There was a light ahead. Not the occasional white glow of moonlight from the slits in the roof, but yel?low lamplight, dimming and brightening as its owner came nearer.
“Someone's coming,” he whispered. “It must be one of the guides!”
Vorbis had vanished.
Brutha hovered uncertainly in the passageway as the light bobbed nearer.